Imagination is Everything!
We had a great first shooting day of “The Dreamtime” on Saturday. It’s nice to be film making again. Tammy Klein and Steve Altman in front of camera once more. We are shooting again tomorrow. And this weekend both days. Did one test composite in After Effects yesterday.
Tomorrow all location. No green screen. All live action. Back at the studio for two days of green screen and we will wrap. Lots of after effects, editing, and sound work ahead for me on this 20 minute short film.
The test went well. I have to say this was the creepiest makeup I have ever done. It gave me the creeps for sure. It all took about 3 hours.
The makeup included the nose, eyebags, old age stipple, hairpieces, and a lot of paint work with Ve Neill alcohol palettes. He is supposed to look like a monster, very sick and out of his mind as a ghost spirit in the film.
In fact I called Ve more than once and she helped me get this right. she was right there for me.
Not bad for a test. He is camera ready for next weekends shoot.
Mark Helmick brought by the parts for the gun yesterday. They are just mazing he did such a great job!
I need to order the correct size tubing for the guns but I can tell already the gun is a perfect fit to the sculpture.
Yesterday was spent cleaning up the bay. Over a year of Covid lock down made for piles of stuff we didn’t need. Plus we needed our stage space for this weekends first shoot for our film. A large percentage of the film is green screen with CGI backgrounds made in Unreal Engine 4.
Got my 1985 Z back from my mechanic yesterday. She’s running perfect and has a new clutch slave cylinder and new tires. Can’t wait to take her on Sunday drives.
Today we are doing the makeup test on Robb Wolford as Hitler. We are putting it all on video and taking pictures and will share that all tomorrow.
Wow Mark Helmick is kicking rear on this gun. He just sent me the first printing pass this morning of the gun parts.
This sculpt is only about 2 hours in. I have much to do but already it’s shaping up and I can wait to fit the gun to the arm later today.
Spent another couple of hours on the Laser blast figure. It’s shaping up. Lots of work to do still and the head is just a rough out. It will get dialed in to really look like me back then.
It’s cool to see the turtle alien next to the figure. They are both the same scale. Gary Hughes built this for me as a gift I treasure.
The V-2 has it’s base colors. Next is to detail it and ad the decal. I plan to panel line it and weather it a bit.
My friend in Spain and author Octavio López Sanjuán wrote this extensive book on my dear friend Larry Cohen’s film series, It’s Alive. I was written about in the book and he sent me a copy.
Me and Mark Williams who worked at my studio on Island of the alive and several other films. He passed in 1998 from pneumonia. This picture here is with Mark when we worked on Larry’s Return to Salem’s Lot.
Octavio has asked to do a book on my career. I am so glad he will be the one to finally do this book so many of you have asked for. I have 100’s of pictures from my career to go through. He will be a busy man.
I’m off to an amazing start with the Laser Blast figure and gun as of yesterday. I decided that the figure I got was far too buff to be accurate to my build back then. so I used it as a proportional reference for a new sculpture armature I made yesterday of dowels and aluminum wire.
Just about the time I got this far Mark Helmick came to the studio to take a look at the gun, take measurements and make a game plan to make the gun digital for 3D printing.
By the early evening he got this far. Man he’s motivated, talented and fast! We’ll be printing this soon. It might be possible to print a larger version as a model kit for a limited run of kits.
While he was working on the measurements I did this.
The idea here is to sculpt the wardrobe first and the head separate. My right arm will be holding the gun and the other free at my side. Having the arms in the holding position of the gun is a molding nightmare. However if the modeler wants to this can be changed by cut the arms at the joints and repositioning them into a holding position. A little putty and paint will blend it nicely.
I’ll be sculpting every chance I get.
This weekend is our first shooting day for the new film. For the next 3 weeks we will be shooting one day out of each weeks so there will be time to get this done.
So excited to be doing this!
As always be sure and click on the thumbnails for larger images.
I put the fins on, primer, motor tube and mount. It must of took me all of an hour. The fins are the weakest link in the chain here. Glued on with CA and a bit of putty to blend they are surprisingly strong. However the next one (and there will be a few) I plan to do epoxy filets which would be even stronger.
I want to get one in the air by our now section launch on the 26th. Where we fly there’s a bit of grass and soft weeds, in the desert where we fly it’s not so forgiving. Test flights will tell me what works best but for now she’s’ good to go once I get her all painted and finished.
This can also be built as a static model. It’s pretty scale in shape and dimensions. And the tail cone reveals the scale bell. I plan to build one for static and really detail it out.
I compared our V-2 to the former Estes kit of the same size. They both weight about the same. But the differences are apparent. The fins of the Estes are much larger. Ours is closer to scale. At the scale size with our smaller V-2 I didn’t notice any instability in 3 flights. It tracks well with no problems found. I can only imagine Estes made the fins so large on theirs to increase stability.
It’s a tiny bit longer too. Overall I’m very happy with the rocket and can’t wait to paint it and give it a flight.
She’s not real big. A great size though up to F motors and G for the bold. I may do a larger one yet but for now this will do well for local low power club launches and scale enthusiast.
First run of Robb’s molds came out great. I’ll run a few more today for back up. We have everything for our shoot now! This are encapsulated with Super Baldiez silicone Gel 10.
On both movie and the V-2 Rocket with great sucess.
I finally ran the prosthetic molds for the Hitler makeup. I got perfect prosthetics the first time. It’s been a while since I ran encapsulated silicone pieces but it all came back to me. Today I’ll run a few more sets for back up and we are good for the makeup test next week in full wardrobe with Robb. When I run them again I’ll video the entire process for “How To make a Monster Part 5” of our subscriber only video series.
In addition I cast up another customers Crater Lake Monster kit. And parts for the V-2 Rocket from my newly opened silicone molds.
Today I’m going to assemble and primer a V-2. All parts are resin. No balsa fins on this pone. Again thanks Mark Helmick for printing these parts for me!!
